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Hint: A Murder Mystery Musical

Brad Kemp's musical parody takes on a genre that seems rife with comic possibilities—murder mysteries—and then fails to find much humor in it. The main problem is that you need to understand how a genre works before you can make fun of it, and Kemp doesn't seem to. Even a parody mystery needs to be a ripping yarn, but there's no story here, only a series of bits—a dim-witted guest, a bumbling Latina maid, a ghost narrator who's also the first victim—glued together with forgettable songs. The acting in the show tends to be over-the-top and cartoonish, symptoms of actors trying to supply the humor that the script has failed to provide. —Jack Helbig